AIBU: health visitor: “it won’t be looked on favourably”

[Itstheimplication]

Just had a call from the health visitor services in our area, last had a check up when DS was 1 and now it’s the 2-3 check, he’s a couple of months away from 3.

They said they needed to book in an appointment and I asked what sort of thing they will be covering and explained his nursery have just had a health visitor in observing the children for a week and we all get a report via the child’s keyworker, plus we’ve had development markers from nursery and progress reports so I just wanted to see if they would be covering anything different.

The woman on the phone got very snotty, there was a long pause and then she said I could decline the visit but it wouldn’t be “looked upon favourably” when I asked what they meant and who wouldn’t look on it favourably she just repeated it again and then said it was in my best interests to book the appointment so there’s a record of him having been seen.

I was a bit unsettled - I hadn’t been rude or anything I just didn’t see the point on doubling up on the info we already had and I had a terrible experience with our HV last time - but I ended up booking the appointment as it was almost like she was insinuating I would be oj some kind of list of concern if I didn’t.

I looked it up online after and can see it’s completely optional and nothing will be held against me if I don’t take the appointment up.

AIBU to cancel the appointment and complain?!

I have two children under 3. It seems to me that health visitors more and more have an (unofficial) safeguarding role. They are super nosy, sniff around in your home and ask questions that simply are none of their business. I am counting the days when I don't have to deal with them anymore.

Complain. She's threatening you, and not even in a subtle way.

Unless you recorded it I'm willing to bet she'll lie her ar$e off about what she said and how though.

My daughter hasn't seen a health visitor since she was 13 days old, when I told the one who showed up and was gob smackingly rude and useless to leave and not come back.

As fair as I'm aware I'm not in a social services blacklist...she's 12 now.

It's not the health visitor's role /responsibility to check stitches or discuss blood loss, that's a midwife's job. So if you'd expressed those concerns the right response would be to get the midwife to see you, whether they are a man or a woman.

My health visitor was fantastic. I was having real problems with breast feeding and had started to mix feed as a result, which I was expecting her to have a pop about. "Well done for recognising what your baby needed and doing the best for him" was her actual response, and that made a massive difference to me. Don't think I really needed her input after that but she was always supportive and respectful and a wonderful woman. So they're not all bad!

Yes, I can recount hundreds of situations. Including those where possibly a child's life was saved. Of course they don't hit the headlines on those occasions, do they?

A HV can't know if you are a great parent who knows a fair bit about child development and has no concerns, or if you are a parent who either does not know a lot about child development and isn't aware they perhaps ought to be concerned, or if you are a parent who is abusing their child - and yes, abuse includes neglect.

To be fair, all of the bad ones don't hit the headlines either - you only hear people's nightmare experiences on MN or when talking with friends.

I just don't understand why, for so very many HVs, their default has to be that nobody will have the faintest idea and that all new parents are going to be stupid/neglectful/abusive. Not to mention the countless stories of bad, even dangerous 'advice' that they often give.

Apart from the added stress and concern that they cause new mums at an already-stressful time, how can you detect who are the 'bad' ones if you don't assume a standard level of 'goodness' and look for signs that something seems amiss and instead treat everybody like they're bad?

Also, if you can recount hundreds of positive situations, you're clearly on the service provider end rather than the new mum end. How do you know that all of the situations were positive? Is that as a result of loads of new mums who, completely unbidden, told you how great their HVs were?

If those stats were gleaned from an assumption that they were helpful unless somebody said otherwise or even from a tick-box questionnaire - many new mums are wary of them and see them as being there to find fault and look for problems, so I can't imagine many wanting to put their heads above the parapet in complaining about somebody whom they perceive could involve SS and report them for a perceived slight - the whole (absurd) 'no smoke without fire' assumption.

I think many people see them as a necessary evil to be endured - there to judge their fitness to be a parent - and are just glad when they go away again with no concerns reported.

I lived with my dm for 3 months in between moving house.
My dm had only lived in her house for 8 months and was at work when a hv came to visit the previous owner and her dc.
My toddler ds was running around without a nappy as we were potty training. It was a freezing cold January day.
The hv accepted I was not her client but made no effort at all to ask who I was and if I had a hv.
I always found it a weird lack of curiosity on her part, no attempt at all to be proactive.

Wow thanks for so many replies I looked earlier and there weren’t any so forgot all about the thread. Going to read through now!

It's not the health visitor's role /responsibility to check stitches or discuss blood loss, that's a midwife's job. So if you'd expressed those concerns the right response would be to get the midwife to see you, whether they are a man or a woman.

Oh yes, you are right about stitches. But I’ve always been asked about blood loss/breastfeeding and other intimate things by HVs before so I don’t think it would be a case of seeing a midwife instead and I do think some women could potentially feel uncomfortable discussing those intimate things with a man.

(sorry that’s a bit of sidetrack from the thread though!)

I phone with third child to move appointment - as it was at school pick up time wasn't allowed to change or cancel it - so ignored it entirely and heard nothing else ever again.

I hadn't found them useful with previous kids and with second child it was a group assessment with group of five other children and us and I was roundly told off for bring baby with me in sling asleep (as I was being silly and of course there was someone to have her - except there wasn't ) only for next two mother's who HV knew who did same to be warmly welcomed.

Oh no, my HV was a godsend to me as a first time, single mum with not much other support. The advice and support she gave me was invaluable.

Our best ever was a man too. Never had a man come to the house, but I used to weigh both of mine regularly at ths clinic because it was a stay and play too, so I'd meet friends there, we'd get them weighed behind the screen and then sit on the floor with the babies and chat.

DS1 had the most horrendous nappy rash. Nothing was working to clear it up (I worked in childcare prior to having him so was well versed on ths many different creams etc). He took one look at it and prescribed Epaderm ointment (it's a bit like Vaseline). Cleared it up literally overnight and earned the moniker 'magic cream' in our house.

We always have a pot in to this day, and it is a miracle cure for every skin thing going. DS1 has sensitive skin on his feet where they crack and split so even now at 11 he has it on nightly and then puts socks on. It's always hugely improved in the morning (doctor confirmed we were doing the right thing).

I will always be grateful to that HV for that. The rest of it was a load of guilt-inducing guff.

My kids are older now but they all had their 2 year checks. It was a pretty standard and mandatory (or so I assumed) appointment back then.

Cancel and complain! What a bully

that is ridiculous
they are official to safeguarding, not unofficial

What does this even mean though? Won’t reflect well according to who?

I have three children and have declined health visitors for them all, they can be pushy but you are the child's parent so stand firm. They are an optional service which you are entitled to decline.

My HVwas shit so I ditched her when my son was under 1. No one said a word, havent heard from anyone since and he’s 2 now. I have no concerns about him or his development. Sod them.

I think I'd complain if someone said that to me and ask them to explain exactly who would look unfavourably on me for cancelling an optional appointment.

We have the opposite problem, DS born during lockdown, all health visiting cancelled. You had a number to call if you had any concerns (1st time parent so everything was a concern but also no idea what to look out for, no parents/friends who could visit either). I’ve rung three times in 2 years, left a message each time, never had a call back. Had to call my GP instead each time who were helpful but understandably annoyed that the HV are doing bugger all in our area. It’s still not running properly. Luckily DS goes to nursery so we have checks there. Bloody useless service.

I'm usually someone to champion folk who work in NHS services or private care, but HVs have been exceedingly cuntish towards me on occasion and even though some have been lovely, those ones were useless and the ones who could have been useful... putrid.

One told me my baby couldn't possibly eat as much as he was eating and be hungry after, so I asked her to feed him because it was a shock to me how much this tiny boy was scoffing.
She fed him, said he was the most extraordinary eater she'd ever visited in her 300 years and just said "he can have toast in a few weeks", my son was only a few weeks old.

Other one came and was very disinterested in my middle child but was really surprised by my exH boots, claiming she'd never seen shoes so huge. He was (and presumably still is) a size 10. Hardly groundbreaking.

Last one I had came in when I was building my middle child a toy, on the floor was the box in came in.
She told me the house was very untidy and cluttered.
Thank god my mum was there or I'd have crumbled, my mum said, "is it the box or the toy causing clutter? Because that's not exactly bringing Kim and aggy over is it?" She was so fucking snotty I honestly thought my mam was thinking about laying her out, but she just said, "I think lwren wants you to leave now" and I agreed, hormonal and terrified I'd allowed my children to be raised admist filth.

I hadn't, FYI

mine was wonderful and really supportive to me during the first few months.She was the person who noticed that i was breathless at a baby clinic and insisted i go to A and E i had a blood clot on my lung.
i also had a friend who suffered a post partum psychosis and her health visitor through her intervention saved her life in my opinion.
I wonder if they are really concentrating on those who need them rather than people who are doing ok?

I would have kept asking the question until she gave a proper answer!! WHO will not look on it favourably??

The letter sent with DS2s questionnaire said if you did not have a good enough reason for not bringing your child to the appointment then you can and will be reported!!

I would cancel and I would write a complaint letter advising that you do not take well to implied threats and that you no longer require the use of their entirely optional service.

It's one of the first things they check if your child ever ends up coming to the attention of children's social services, so that's who 'they' probably are. It's one of the quick checks they do to decide whether to pursue an investigation if there is an incident of some kind eg. Injury, possible safeguarding issue.